Sunday Service - Praise + Prayer!

The first week of every new year, we at Mercy Hill devote ourselves to what we call a Week of Prayer.  This year's Week of Prayer is running from January 5th to 12th.  We hope you've been enjoying it so far. 

As you may have noticed, on the last day of this week—the 12th (this Sunday!)—we are planning to do something different.  We are going to devote the entire service to an extended time of musical worship and prayer!  We will sing about twice as many songs as we usually do and punctuate our singing with times of open (but organized) prayer. 

These times of prayer will be divided into two main sections. 

• The first will be open mic with the whole congregation.  We'll allow people to freely pray along the lines of our core values (Faith, Community, and Mission).  You can express adoration to God, give thanks, confess sin, request help, etc.  To get ideas of what you might pray for, you can flip through this year's Prayer Guide.  In other words, your time in prayer privately this week should prepare you quite nicely to pray with us corporately on Sunday.  (You may want to bring your Prayer Guide with you to the service.) 
• The second will be in smaller groups of 3-4.  So you aren't taken off guard, here's the prompt we'll give you: As you look to the year ahead (2025), please share 1-3 ways we can be praying for you?

Here are a few other things you should know:

• As noted above, during the service, we will be praying in different contexts.  Don't be afraid.  There is no pressure to pray out loud.  But we do encourage you to come ready to engage if you're willing!
• We will not be streaming the service live on Facebook.  Because we anticipate many different people praying for many different things in many different contexts, it doesn't seem appropriate (or feasible!) to stream this in some public way.  So please plan on coming in person, and try not to be late!  
• If you were wondering about your kids, we've got you covered.  Mercy Hill Kids will be up and running as usual.  So head to the classrooms in the back and get them checked in before the service starts!

Would you pause and pray for our time together even now?  Ask God to meet with us in fresh and surprising ways.  We're excited to see what he will do!